The Creative Fire: 1 (Ruby's Song)

by Brenda Cooper

  “Light. Ix. Light.”

  Damned machine. The cloth under her fingers was getting soggy. “Hang on, Nona.”

  Ix’s voice, finally. “What’s wrong, Ruby?”

  “Nona’s dying.”

  “Can you show me?”

  “No. Send someone.”

  “I already have.”

  “Thank you. Light!”

  Two of the four lights in the ceiling bloomed on. Ruby swallowed at her first real sight of Nona. She wanted a free hand to help cover her, but she didn’t dare stop doing her best to staunch the blood. At least it wasn’t gushing out over her fingers, but there was already so much on the floor. She’d never seen so much blood in her life, not even when Lou had cut off two fingers in the machine room. Ruby had been so close that his blood spattered her shirt.

  Nona watched Ruby, her eyes intense in the white field of her pale face. She opened her mouth. “Thank you.”

  “Who did this?”

  Nona shook her head, barely.

  “You knew them. You met them here.”

  “Don’t. Mess with It. Ruby.” A long breath, thin, Nona wincing as she added, “Not safe. Don’t be me. Stay safe.”

  “Shhh . . . stop talking. You’ll be okay.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Not. Good. Enough.”

  “What wasn’t good enough?”

  “Me.”

  “Of course you were. You’re good. You’re my friend. I need you.”

  Nona lifted a hand toward Ruby’s face. She almost made it, but her hand fell away before their skin touched.

  Ruby froze, her hands still over the wound, her voice shaking as she called Nona’s name over and over.

  Long after she’d lost all hope of helping Nona, and long before anyone came to help her, Ruby whispered, “I’ll change this. I’ll stop it. I’ll do it for you.” It became a mantra, and then almost a song, a shaky, scary little song that she sang over and over to the empty room while she waited.

  “I’ll change this. I’ll stop it. I’ll do it for you. I’ll change this. I’ll stop it. I’ll do it for you. I’ll change this. I’ll stop it. I’ll do it for you . . .”

  The rhythm of the mantra matched the rhythm of the train, the rock and murmur of the cars, as they slid across tracks in the darkness between pods. Ruby whispered the words again into the near dark, feeling Onor’s hand on her shoulder and hearing Lya whisper something into Hugh’s ear. Ruby whispered, “I’ll change this. I’ll make them stop. Nona.” Then she added, “Hugh.”

  6: Kyle

  Ruby jolted awake, blinking at bright light, surprised she’d passed so deeply into her daydreaming that she hadn’t felt the train stop.

  Ben stood in front of her, his arms crossed, using his best red voice. “Off.”

  Beside her, Marcelle had already gathered her things, and Onor looked anxious.

  Ben gestured toward the door. Ruby clutched her bag to her chest. Where was her family? Why hadn’t she asked Ben about them?

  The B-pod transport station looked like theirs, except painted mostly blue instead of mostly orange. It smelled cleaner than the train, and far more sterile.

  As soon as they stepped off, a red called them over, squinting at them as his journal queried their chips. After a moment, he identified them by name. Apparently satisfied, he launched into a few sentences that he seemed bored of repeating. “You will remain here until told to go anywhere else. Travel between pods is currently restricted. Resettlements are based on order of evacuation.”

  So she wouldn’t see her family. She swallowed hard, listening for the red’s next words.

  “You will be expected to contribute to B-pod. Your ration allotments have already been switched in case you have immediate needs. Logistics will resettle you based on skills and family needs in the future.”

  “My aunt is here,” Ruby said. “We can stay with her.”

  “If you have family who were settled to other places, logistics will try to resettle you based on skills and family needs in the future.” The red repeated exactly.

  She pursed her lips. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I’d like to find my aunt. Her name is Daria.”

  The red blinked at her as if she’d sent him into full stop. “Do you know where she lives?”

  She hadn’t seen her since she was ten. A long time ago. Maybe Daria wouldn’t even remember her. “No.”

  “Then we’ll try to help you find her . . . in the future.”

  Great. “In the future” meant don’t bother me now. He looked at his journal. “Ruby and Marcelle, you’ve been placed with Kyle Gleason.”

  Ruby reached for Onor’s hand and did her best to look lost. “Onor should stay with us. We’re a family group.” Their chips would tell the guard something different if he was paying attention. She held her breath, waiting, smiling.

  The red’s eyes had already been drawn to Hugh and Lya, who were coming off the train right behind them, Hugh’s head bandaged and his clothes stained with dried blood.

  A tall man came forward to take Ruby’s bag. The man, who must have overheard, said, “I’ll make room.” He held a hand out toward them all. “I’m Kyle.”

  “Thank you,” Ruby said.

  Kyle’s dark hair hung long over dark eyes, and his skin was the brown of used robot oil. She held her hand out to him. “I’m Ruby, and these are my close friends, Marcelle and Onor.”

  “One of you will need to sleep on the floor.”

  Ruby nodded. “We’ll manage.”

  Marcelle said, “Onor will sleep on the floor,” and then, a few seconds later, she squeaked.

  Ruby didn’t turn around to see what Onor had done to Marcelle. “Thank you. I hope we won’t be here long.”

  “Might be a while.”

  It turned out that this part of the Fire had felt only small shudders, and no more. But they’d been told to expect refugees for weeks. They filled Kyle in on the barest details of their experience as they walked away from the transport station.

  The corridors here were mostly blue as well, and a few of the walls had pictures of fish on them.

  At home, the pictures had been of birds.

  Kyle’s place was like her family’s hab—a small kitchen, a sink, a big shared-space room with a vid screen and a few chairs, a privy, and two small sleeping areas with two beds each. Shared walls with the neighbors on both sides. She asked for water, which tasted like the stars and a good song, and washed a bit of the scent of Hugh’s blood from the back of her throat.

  Kyle said, “I’ve got to go clean up a mess I left behind at work when all this started. I’ll get that, and then I’ll bring you dinner.”

  She hadn’t been thinking about food until Kyle mentioned it, but now it was hard to think about anything else. She looked around. There were few personal touches. A picture of an older woman on one wall. On another, a painting of one of the planets the Fire had been to, a blue-water world with almost no land. It wasn’t even the last one they’d been to, but somewhere in the middle, some place her grandfather’s grandfather might have seen before he died. The picture stuck in her head though.

  She dibbed the top bunk, and she and Marcelle stowed their stuff in drawers built into the walls.

  Onor had no stuff, but he hopped up on the top bunk and sat beside Ruby, both of their legs dangling over. Marcelle, standing against the wall, opened her mouth like she was about to complain, but he produced three energy gels from his pocket. “This’ll get us though.”

  Ruby thought she might kiss him. Except he’d like it too much. So she punched him in the arm and took the gel. After the sweet sticky stuff hit her stomach and got her brains working again, she remembered why the picture of the planet bothered her.

  “I didn’t tell you guys. We’re almost home. Fox said we’re going to be there soon, like in our lifetime. Maybe even in a year. The problems we’re having—the stuff today—that’s all from starting to slow down.”

  “Fox?” Ma
rcelle asked.

  Ruby dug the story out for them both, doing her best in spite of being tired. Because Onor had seen it, she couldn’t hide that she’d kissed Fox. She didn’t tell them how much she’d liked it, or how she’d asked Fox to take her with him.

  When Kyle came with food, they swarmed him, eating silently and fast.

  As he was clearing up, Kyle said, “There’s a man who wants to see you. I told him tomorrow.”

  “Who?” Ruby asked. “We hardly know anyone here.”

  Kyle shook his head, and a thin smile showed one cracked tooth. “Owl Paulie.”

  “I don’t know an Owl Paulie.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Or me.”

  Kyle smiled at the serial response. “We all know him here. He’s kind of a legend to us—used to cause all kinds of trouble with the reds and get away with it. He said he owes you gratitude for wrapping up his grandson’s head.”

  Hugh? “Okay, we’ll meet him.”

  “That’s what I told him. I’ll take you on my way to work.”

  In spite of her exhaustion, sleep visited in slight waves, and she spent a lot of time thinking. She needed to know who would help her here and who wouldn’t. Daria might not even remember her. Her family was far away, which was partly good, except that she’d like to know they were all right.

  If only Fox had taken her with him. Then she’d be someplace strange, but it would be wonderful, too.

  7: The Old Man’s Tale

  Onor woke from a dream where a rip in the roof led to the black of space. Lym, the home planet from the game Adiamo, swirled in the opening, a round, brown place riddled with seas and rivers, with mountains and birds and spaceships that flew for days or years instead of lifetimes. He hadn’t even recalled its name until just now. Lym. Lym, with enough water for everyone, all the time. That’s what he remembered the most about learning the game, the way his avatar could have all the water it wanted and never be thirsty.

  That’s it. He was thirsty.

  And he smelled food.

  The girls chattered to some man, all three of them laughing quietly. Kyle. He blinked and oriented himself to the direction of the voices. They must have gotten up and gone past him into the kitchen. Since he could hear all of them, it was safe to bolt for the privy.

  Kyle fed them a better breakfast than Onor ever remembered tasting. It was the same base stuff as always, protein and vegetables, breakfruit and enhanced water, but Kyle had added a salty sharpness that lingered on Onor’s tongue.

  Ruby asked, “How’d you make that so good?”

  “Magic,” Kyle said and grinned.

  “Nope.” Marcelle teased him. “Magic’s only in stories. What’cha got?”

  Kyle pointed at dried flowers and plants hung upside down above the sink. “I have a friend who works in the gardens. He planted these for me.”

  Hidden resources. “That was the best breakfast I ever had,” Onor told him.

  Ruby asked, “Has there been any news? Will they tell us where our families went?”

  Kyle grunted as he reached up to set two clean drinking bulbs into their holders. “Reds don’t tell us much yet. I’m on day shift. I’ll take you to see Owl Paulie on the way, if you like. I imagine C-pod was laid out the same, so you can find your way back.”

  They dodged more people in the corridors here than at home, probably from the relocation. Onor recognized a few, waving but not stopping. Hopefully the reclamation center and the gardens would hold up to so many new mouths.

  They passed B-pod’s common. It, too, was like theirs. Except it had pale blue walls painted with orange and red and yellow fish rather than pale orange walls decorated with gray and brown and black birds. Refugees wandered or sat on benches, looking lost and worried. He spotted old Ben standing against a wall, observing.

  Ix’s voice startled him, tumbling from all of the speakers at once. “All home personnel report for normal duty. Repeat. All home personnel, all pods, report for duty as usual. Anyone wounded in yesterday’s accident is to report to medical by the end of this shift. All off-duty crew members are to report to common at 15:30.”

  Ruby looked sour. “They could at least tell us if the ship’s still falling apart.”

  “I guess we get the day off,” Onor said. “That’s some information.”

  Ruby grinned at him, and Marcelle thumped him on the back, hard. Damn her. She could stop pushing him around any time.

  Owl Paulie lived in the retirement warrens near medical: rows of small places with good access to doctors, extra handholds on the wall, and extra grime on the corridor floors and walls.

  Owl Paulie’s set of two rooms smelled like age—mostly dry but with a slight sour tang. Kitchen and living room had been crammed into the same space, with three locked drawers and one set of shelves that held pots and games strapped down. Ruby, Onor, and Marcelle pulled chairs out of the wall and sat close enough together to touch. The only padded chair was red, with handmade cushions. Although it wasn’t big, it dwarfed its occupant.

  Owl Paulie’s limbs were knobby and thin as robot arms. His skull threatened to burst free of his skin, and big, laughing eyes hid behind folds of wrinkles. As soon as Kyle left them, the old man held his hand out to Ruby and said, “I’ve heard much about you.”

  Her cheeks reddened and she smiled faintly. She asked, “What do you know of us? From where?”

  “Of you, Ruby.” Owl Paulie shook a bit as he sat. His voice was so soft. Onor held his breath, leaning in close to the old man’s dry, cracked lips. “Hugh’s told me how you sing, and how you fight everything. He admires you very much. For both skills.”

  Ruby looked as surprised as Onor felt.

  Owl Paulie took a tiny sip of water and kept going. “Hugh told me what he heard last night. That the sky gave way in your park and showed you the belly of The Creative Fire.”

  He went quiet again. Maybe he could only manage one sentence at a time before he had to rest.

  Marcelle answered. “When C-pod started to stretch—that’s what they said, it stretched—the roof tore. We knew there was another level, but we didn’t know they were so attached,” Marcelle looked up at the ceiling, “or for sure that it was above us and not beside us.”

  Marcelle hadn’t even seen it. It wasn’t her story to tell. But Onor kept his mouth shut.

  Owl Paulie had gotten the strength to talk again. “My brother went there.” Pause. “To other levels.”

  Wow.

  Ruby leaned in, eyes wide. “How?”

  Owl Paulie’s breath sounded shallow and fast. “There’s a test. They keep it from us, like everything.” A break. “Can’t have gray crap infect the ship. But you might get there that way.”

  Ruby’s brows wrinkled deep. “A test? That easy?”

  Owl Paulie said, “If we don’t know what’s possible, we don’t reach for it.”

  Marcelle crossed her arms and leaned back. “How come you didn’t take it?”

  “I didn’t believe him.” A pause. “Ask Ix about Laws of Passage.”

  It sounded too easy. “Did you ever see your brother again?” Onor asked.

  Owl Paulie nodded. “Once. He came back and told me he was okay. He was dressed in blue.”

  A stop while the old man’s labored breathing ate any possibility of more words. When he could go on, he said, “He gave me a scrap of blue material and told me to tell someone one day.”

  “Did you?”

  The old man winced. “Hugh didn’t believe me.” He looked at Ruby. “Do you?”

  She was leaning forward, close to Owl Paulie’s ear. She whispered, “I don’t know what to believe anymore. After yesterday.”

  “Tell me your story . . .” Owl Paulie took a sip of water and coughed, almost choking. When he could breathe again he said, “What you saw. Tell me.”

  This time Marcelle was quiet and let Ruby talk. Onor listened closely when Ruby told the part about Fox. She wasn’t telling him everything, or any of them everythi
ng. Even though her voice sounded higher and thinner as she blew past the parts she didn’t want to talk about, she didn’t miss a beat. She was good. If he hadn’t known her story was true by being there, he still would have believed it. The way she told it, the danger felt imminent, and the hole in the floor sounded bigger than the one he’d seen.

  When Ruby finished, Owl Paulie sat back in his chair and said, “Now I know why Hugh likes you. You have a gift for storytelling.” Another pause. “Will you write a song about the sky falling?”

  A smile played across Ruby’s lips. Onor felt a sexual twist at the way she returned Owl Paulie’s look, an adult look, almost but not quite predatory.

  The inside speakers came on and repeated the earlier message, the recorded voice loud enough to buzz Onor’s ears. After silence returned, Onor looked back at Owl Paulie, ready to ask him if he knew if his brother was still alive. The old man’s head had tilted to one side. His eyes were closed. His breath was shallow and regular. In sleep, he looked even frailer than when he was awake.

  Ruby glanced at Marcelle. “We’re going to take that test. Right after we finish the last-years.”

  Marcelle grunted. “You think it’s real?”

  Ruby nodded.

  Marcelle furrowed her brow. “Should we ask Ix?”

  Onor couldn’t help himself. “Maybe we should learn a little more. Ix is probably busy right now anyway.”

  Marcelle’s reply came quick. “Ix is a computer. It can do anything it wants all at once.”

  “So? Maybe I want to learn more before we jump into this test. Maybe it’s a myth.”

  Ruby glared at him, then softened and let out a long sigh, brushing fire-red strands of hair from her eyes. “Adiamo?”

  “What about your aunt?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow.”

  Good enough. He could already taste another day of Kyle’s cooking.

  Onor stood in the doorway and frowned. So many people filled the game bar; it looked like a festival night. Even the physical immersives along the walls were over half full. The multipurpose tables spread across the floor were full of students and players alike, some focused on group games, others chatting quietly or lost in solo trips. Surely the games were the same from pod to pod, but still the subtle differences in layout left him off center.